Movie News

Action Style

I was stunned at the amount of action this film had that wasn’t exclusively wrangling ghosts with neutrino wands.  Our leading ladies get into some serious scraps with these pesky poltergeists by manner of fisticuffs, gunplay and explosives.  They also get tossed around a lot because they get whipped a couple of times.

4/6

Action Frame

Wider shots that tended more towards complete CG had some interesting angles going on, but as dynamic as the action sequences were, one could tell these weren’t another Michael Bay shameless rip from the 80s.

3/5

Lead Performance

Melissa McCarthy is fairly funny, but also delivers the exact same performance you’ve seen her accomplish in everything she’s been in.  Ditto for Kristen Wiig.  Kate McKinnon is the goofball, but seemed to be sending out a confusingly homosexual vibe which would have been fine had she not been so determined to come off as an absolute joke whenever she wasn’t talking about tech stuff.  Leslie Jones’ Patty Tolan was easily the most consistent and charismatic of the Ghostbusters.  She brought sobering moments of anger and shock to balance her comedic delivery.

3/6

Supporting Performance

The one point goes to Chris Hemsworth for having the courage to play the dumbest, most mind-numbingly vacant excuse for female eye candy EVER placed in front of a camera.  Yes, he’s hysterical, but in the back of my mind, Thor is shaking his head in disapproval.  Nobody else in this entire cast that isn’t a Ghostbuster is worth a lick of salt which especially includes Andy Garcia for his “paycheck film” performance and the lamest villain since the bad guy in any Pee Wee Herman film courtesy of Neil Casey. 

1/5

Music

Oh no.  New flashy tracks with big names do not a good soundtrack make.  I am so happy they did not put the original Ray Parker Jr. song on repeat throughout, but doing so probably would have been an improvement.  None of it sounded spooky at all.

2/6

Sound F/X

Yes!  Great audio effects for all the pseudo science ghost-busting equipment.  The ghosts themselves also sounded pretty great, but again, not particularly spooky.

4/5

Digital F/X

All ghostly and supernatural effects throughout looked really neat, at least at first.  Unfortunately, the exclusively neon color gradient used for every single ghost got distracting and with even more neon introduced with proton pack lasers, it was like watching My Little Ponies at a rave party shooting rainbows of Skittle candies at each other from their unicorn horns.

4/6

Special F/X

Well done practical effects with wire work!  Our ladies get beat up pretty well by their ghostly opposition as they are thrown about the screen with seamless proficiency.  Also, who doesn’t love slime and goo everywhere?

4/5

Costumes

Yikes.  This is a significant downgrade from the jumpsuits in the original films.  Seriously, these new ones are burlap sacks with orange duct tape wrapped around them.  More effort was needed here. 

2/6

Hair & Makeup

For a collection of women who aren’t on the short list to be cast as “the babe” in any particular film, the hair and makeup team made every single Ghostbuster look pretty damn cute.  Point deduction for Andy Garcia’s team who seemed to go for a slight awkward Crypt Keeper look about his face.

4/5

Exteriors

No.  No.  No.  Part of what made the original Ghostbusters film great was that it was also a great NYC movie featuring a bunch of notable landmarks and wide exterior shots that presented the city itself as an honorary character.  The exteriors in this film are far too boxed in save for the climax which looked like it was setup on a soundstage.

1/6

Interiors

Interiors are the polar opposite what with a nice range of diversity among businesses, schools, laboratories and hotels filled out with some very neat set dressings (especially in the labs).

4/5

Hook

“Besties” from high school are reunited through convenient circumstance bringing in to question the validity of paranormal science.  Videotaped evidence leads to a journey through a sea of naysayers and debunkers to fight real ghosts.

2/4

Conflict

Ghosts are bad on their own, but someone is causing them to be more assertive than your garden variety haunting.

2/4

Resolution

Good guys win.  Bad guys lose.  And an obvious hook to turn this into a franchise appears post credits. 

2/4

Dialogue

The women really shine in their casual repartee as the crack wise and figure out what to do next.  They falter when they try to use scientific jargon which is meant to at least sound funny, but comes off as laborious.  All of Leslie Jones’ lines are pure gold though.

3/6

Exposition

These characters may not have the greatest depth in the world, but that also means their back stories can be wedged in anywhere and shelved instantly to get back to the laughs and action.

3/5

Character Uniqueness

Yes, these Ghostbusters are women who live in a fictional universe completely removed from the original film with their own, personal idiosyncrasies.  The problem is, those eccentricities directly equate them as feminine iterations of their original counterparts: Kristen Wiig = Peter Venkman, Melissa McCarthy = Ray Stantz, Kate McKinnon = Egon Spengler and Leslie Jones = Winston Zeddmore (not just a race thing, but also a race thing).   

3/6

Character Relatability

Sure, some people may know the bitterness of social media pointing and laughing at whatever you do or say, but the more heartfelt message of these Ghostbusters is that people, no matter how weird, or tough, or silly, want to belong and it takes special people to put differences aside and accept you for who you are.

4/5